


91. spitting image

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [275]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah and Helena, the morning after Helena gets back from Frankfurt. (Project Leto 'verse.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place immediately after [we could use a razor blade](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3852079)!

Sarah wakes up and Helena is in her bed and it’s strange. That’s the worst part: that this is strange, that Helena’s presence here is jarring. Helena was only in Frankfurt for three weeks; before that they’d been together every night of their entire lives, even before the professors sat them down for breakfast and said that the DYAD Institute would be taking care of them now. Only three weeks. That’s how long it takes to make Sarah’s sister _strange_.

Helena rolls over and looks at her, eyes wide and scared. Sarah reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s alright,” she says.

“It doesn’t feel alright.”

“We’re acclimating.”

“It’s going to happen again,” Helena says, sliding closer until her legs are brushing against Sarah’s legs. “What are we going to end up acclimating _to?_ ”

Sarah rolls over onto her side, knocks her forehead against Helena’s and then inches back so there’s space between them. “The,” she says, and then stops. The word: _separation_. The concept: unbearable.

“Tell me everything that happened,” Helena says. “It was only three weeks. I’ll catch up. It’ll be like we were never separate in the first place.”

Sarah can’t help herself: she reaches for Helena’s hand, laces them together. One of their palms is sweating, and their fingers slip together – strange. Sarah rubs her thumb back and forth over the nail of Helena’s index finger, the one where she’d repainted the polish. A raised line that isn’t on Sarah’s nail. Every other part of Sarah’s sister familiar except this one small thing, and this is the one Sarah lingers on.

“You left,” she says. “They endeavored to pull me more into the North American branch of things. I went to Beth’s medical examination. A few others.”

“Which others.”

“Alison,” Sarah says. “Tony, Jane, Cosima.”

“So many flights,” Helena murmurs. “Poor Sarah.”

“Exhausting,” Sarah says. She doesn’t admit it, because it’s not something to confess: confessing means someone outside of you, like a priest. Helena _is_ Sarah. You don’t confess things to yourself; you either know them, or—

You don’t.

Their fingers twist against each other and Helena watches Sarah and Sarah keeps rubbing her thumb over Helena’s nail. They’re both waiting for Sarah to speak. Sarah is always the one who speaks. _I slept with a boy_ , she doesn’t say. _It didn’t make me less lonely. You’re back and I’m still lonely. I miss you._

“I’ll tell you all of it,” she says. “After we’re done for the day.”

Helena smiles, soft, splays her hand against Sarah’s neck. Sarah wonders how fast her heartbeat is going. Sarah wonders what it’s saying to Helena now. But she knows her line: “I’ve missed you,” she says. “I’ve missed _us_.”

Helena hums and lifts her hand and burrows closer, so they’re one pile of sweat-sticky limbs. Their hands are still fastened so tight together. There are things that they are, and none of those things are _separate_. Sarah has missed her, that wasn’t a lie. _Sarah_ on its own is such a strange concept.

“Getting ready in the morning hasn’t been the same,” she says, eyes drifting past Helena and to the closed curtain. “Meetings I went to alone. Dinners with no one to talk to. This.”

Helena’s breath against Sarah’s neck. “I don’t think,” Sarah says, “I can do it again.”

“But we have to.”

“I know,” Sarah says. “I know.”

“As long as we fit together again,” Helena murmurs, “we’ll be fine. They can’t separate us.”

Her bones jabbing into Sarah’s bones. Her fingers squeezing Sarah’s fingers. Sarah’s sister a vice grip. “They can’t separate us,” Sarah echoes.

“I love you,” Helena says, at the same time Sarah says “We need to repaint our nails.”

“I love you too,” she adds, the moment horrendous: they’re out of sync.

“We do,” Helena says. “Yours is chipping.” How can she not feel it. How can she not tell. Maybe she can tell, and Sarah can’t tell that she can tell and this is the end of the world, how can they recover from this. Only three weeks and how can they recover from it.

“Let’s,” Sarah says. Neither of them move. Helena clings to her so tightly, like mistletoe. Sarah loves her. She does. She swears she does. She knows for a fact that’s true – she _knows_ it, because it’s the only true thing in the world. Sarah will remove all the polish from her sister’s fingertips and repaint them just the same as hers. No chips, no bumps, no messy inconsistencies: just the two of them, exactly the same. It’s going to happen; she knows it to be true.

“Helena?” Sarah says. Helena hums: _mm_.

“Don’t leave me,” Sarah says.

“Never,” Helena says. It’s not enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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